A PwC report, Africa Business Agenda 2019, shows a dip in the CEOs’ confidence in their own organizations’ revenue prospects over the short term (12-month) and medium (three-year) medium term. This may indicate slow global economic growth as business leaders choose to play it safe in the terrain they know.
This year’s results show that the proportion of CEOs who are very confident of revenue growth over the next 12 months has declined from 38% in 2016 to 27% in 2019. When asked about prospects for revenue growth over the next three years, the proportion of CEOs in Africa who are very confident has declined steadily from 52% in 2016 to 39% in 2019.
Economic growth has been particularly strong in East Africa at around 3% a year since 2013.
In addition, CEOs identified technological advances among the most transformative global trends in the workplace in the last five years. For instance, in East Africa, M-Pesa has revolutionized mobile money in Kenya and drones in Rwanda are delivering medicines.
Moreover, foreigners can apply for e-visas to Kenya, Rwanda, and Zambia with e-government services becoming the norm.
On top of that, the African CEOs expressed concerns on policy uncertainty, skill shortages, cyber threats, inadequate basic infrastructure, over-regulation, and exchange rate volatility as threats to business growth in the future
Furthermore, uncertainties in the external environment are forcing CEOs to turn inwards to drive revenue growth such as operational efficiencies, organic growth, robotics, digitization and automation, and the launch of new products and services.
